Wednesday, January 22, 2014

picnic at the dead sea,

The Dead Sea is shrinking at an alarming rate, now there is a plan to dig a canal from the Red Sea to bring fresh seawater back and refill it. Will it work and how long will it take, no one knows, in the meantime we Optimists have an annual kayak trip here in January. This year we had about 30 kayakers, many newcomers and a lot of oldtimers too.

When I came to Israel in 1979, the water level was right at the roadside, if you look carefully at the picture you can see the road just at the bottom of the cliff

today almost everybody has a waterproof camera and there are hundreds of photos to choose from so I chose a few

The salt crystals are fantastic

The light changes during the day and the mountains over in Jordan come alive

Fresh water springs run from the Judean Desert into the sea creating gullies

If you can get your feet out of the mud you can go for a walk

You can see how the gully enlarges as it gets further from the sea

Once this was all under sea water

And then there is the grand picnic

Everybody brings something good to eat and drink, we put it all together as a buffet and get stuck in like there is no tomorrow.

The group was very well behaved , all paddling together and no one rolling

On the home leg we let go and everyone can go at their own pace, fast or slow and get rid of all the excess energy

Salt is interesting stuff

the hot pool at the end of the day is good for a relaxing moment before the long ride home. Until next year

Thanks to the photographers, Vered Eyal, Yossi, David, there were lots of other photos but fewer are better than too many